Shareholders of the American arms manufacturer Sturm Ruger voted Wednesday in favor of a resolution that asks the company to prepare a report on the impact of its activity on human rights, an initiative that takes place several days after two mass shootings in the United States.
“During the annual general meeting, the management announced that its shareholders had approved a proposal presented by CommonSpirit Health and other members of the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility”, indicates a statement from the coalition of religious organizations.
“They managed to assert I am telling other stakeholders that arms manufacturers cannot relinquish their roles and responsibilities to help stop the carnage perpetrated with the products they sell to the public,” the text adds.
The company did not confirm immediately to AFP the result of the vote. called to vote against the proposal, which is non-binding.
The vote comes days after the massacre perpetrated by a shooter at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, which killed a student. 19 children and two teachers; and a racist massacre that killed ten among the black community of Buffalo, in upstate New York.
The guns involved were not produced by Sturm Ruger, but the company is one of the few publicly traded gunmakers in the United States, with Smith & Wesson, and must therefore be held publicly accountable.
The resolution requests the Sturm Ruger board of directors to ask a third party for an evaluation report and recommendation on the impact
“By selling weapons to civilians, Ruger assumes they will be used” “safely,” the text points out. But the risk that they will be misused, to the detriment of society, “is not factored into Ruger’s governance structures or policies or practices that would mitigate this threat,” he adds. /p>
For its part, the company claims to have led initiatives for “safety in firearms”; and that the resolution is a way for its supporters to advance gun control measures “that they could not achieve legally or by other means.”